There is always a greater power. Welcome to my kingdom.

Losing badly due to lack of preparation and training?

I told myself to stop blogging about my Melty Blood escapades more than a year ago but I guess the only way for me to fully vent out my frustrations is to type it all out.

Lately, I have been losing frequently and very badly at the arcade. I really miss the days when I first started learning Melty in mid-2010. Those were the times where I was absolutely fearless about losing. I was desperate to get as much experience as I could by playing as many times as possible. If I lost a match, I could attribute it to beginner’s nerves (or dropped combos), or lack of match-up knowledge when fighting a completely new character. And during the rare moments when I actually won, I’d really cherish the victory because it felt that I had fought tooth-and-nail to carve out that win.

When you have been playing the game for almost three years, on a religiously weekly basis, there comes a certain expectation. The expectation that after playing for so long, you should be able to consistently win more matches than usual. But I cannot maintain that expectation, and proceed to get horrible losing streaks of 22 losses and 2 wins. That’s a win rate of less than 10 percent. Absolutely abysmal and disappointing.

Of course I am mad as hell, and the only possible way that I can rectify this is to just play the game every single day. If I cannot play an online match, then at the very least I have to grind out training at home.

The next time I lose, I can lose with no regrets because I have already done all the training I could possibly do. I am so sick and tired of feeling angry.

Edward Pang

Likes videogames a lot, and good videogame writers even more. Plays almost everything except for rhythm games. Also enjoys sports, animation, comics, Japanese language studies, and the occasional American TV drama. Contributes to BallBall and No Game No Talk.